Friday, May 24, 2013

The Surgeon

I take the knife and cut deeply. Not so long ago I was much more
timid, much less sure. But now my hand knows better how to bear the instrument
it carries. I only pierce those who I know I can help to heal. Judgment has
become more clear, and skill played out with more definition and determination.
I have come with the purpose to bring better life. Unfounded opinions often push
weight as to who and how, of treatments that they want or need, desires of what
I should do or not do – but they cannot sway my decisions. I have to do what I
think is in the best interest of my patient. I will only intentionally harm
those who I believe will eventually be helped by the weapons that I wield.
There are those who are too sick, those whose bodies I cannot help with the
blade. Or some whose condition surpasses what I have been trained and equipped to aid.
There are those who are beyond me.

But there is One who’s cut is always beneficial, though often undesirable.
His incisions are able to bring eternal healing. But like every surgeon, His incisions
initially bring pain. However He has no limitations, as do the hands of men.
His judgment is flawless and His skill perfectly precise. It is a strange thing
that He would want to wound His own. We often don’t feel like we need or want
His work performed on us. We are satisfied. But He sees that there is
infection, impurity, and rottenness in places that we have closed our eyes to.
He knows that the tumor must be cut out in order to heal us. He breaks us,
bruises us, harms us. And sometimes we wonder why. How could the One who has
claimed generation after generation to pour His love on us treat us this way?
How could He allow this, when He could have stopped it? We cry, broken hearted
and low in spirit. But just after He has closed the wound, the healing begins.

Time after time He breaks and heals. We feel His love, and then it
seems He lets the pain in. We wonder if He left us? Did He take the shelters of
His mercies away? At first confusion seems to be overwhelming, but over the
years He teaches us to trust Him as He treats us. He knows our disease, and He
understands the best and worst within us. We begin to see Him as the Healer,
not the hurter. Our pain and loss still bring their familiar twinge, but our
eyes are open to see His character behind His hands. He wounds us deeply,
because He loves us greatly. He refuses to leave us sick and dying while His
hands hold the cure for our ailments. He is determined to restore us to Life.
He has made a Way to bring us out of death and into life, and then to shape and
make us into what we were supposed to be.